Certain IT firms offer to boost online popularity with fake followers, run campaigns against rivals

Investigative website Cobrapost.com on Friday claimed to have “exposed” certain IT firms for “misusing” social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help politicians artificially boost their popularity with fake ‘likes’ and ‘followers’, and running campaigns against rivals and even triggering panic among minority groups.

However, experts are sceptical of the “tall claims” made by the firm owners featured in the Cobrapost’s undercover operation called “Operation Blue Virus”. The video-footage released by the website, the authenticity of which The Hindu can not verify independently, was screened before the media on Friday. Cobrapost.com Editor Aniruddha Bahal alleged that some of the IT firms featured in the footage claimed to be working for the BJP’s prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

“Operation Blue Virus also reveals that the BJP is leading from the front in its social media campaign, if claims of the companies exposed are to be believed. So is its prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, with scores of companies working overtime for him,” alleged the investigative website.

“This puts a question mark on the claims of the BJP leadership that there is a wind blowing in favour of their party in general and Mr. Modi in particular, for it may not be real,” said Mr. Bahal.

The BJP, for its part, has dismissed the purported exposé, describing it as the handiwork of the “dirty tricks department” of the Congress. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar on Friday said: “It has been ensured that the places where the Congress is named in the footage has bad audio. It shows that the Congress is scared of Mr. Modi’s popularity and the support the BJP is getting ahead of elections.”

Reacting to the Cobrapost operation, Ishan Russel, the managing partner of ‘The Image People’, a social media and political campaign consultancy, said the issue of buying “likes” or “followers” was not new as recently Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was accused of buying Facebook likes.

Mr. Russel finds the claims made by the firm owners in the Cobrapost operation “surprising”.

“At some levels, the jobs these people promised to execute on social media platforms are really surprising. The manner in which some of the guys claimed to get bombs exploded and get bogus voting done was not about social media but terrorism,” he said.

“If a politician has million followers but they are fake, it does not make any difference because the fake likes would not translate into million votes. Any politician can not run his campaign through fake likes because fake followers do not result in positive campaigning on the ground,” added Mr. Russel.

Mr. Bahal earlier said that the malpractices highlighted by the Cobrapost operation included violation of various laws, including the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Income Tax Act, 1961, and were as such punishable under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

“The veil of anonymity that digital technologies provide the abusers of social media has to be pierced,” added Mr. Bahal. Demanding investigations into the functioning of the IT companies in question, he said government authorities would have to pull up their socks and “put in place a comprehensive mechanism to tackle the misuse of social media, which is largely unregulated, without impinging on freedom of speech.”

The Election Commission last month issued a series of instructions to the political parties according to which every candidate, at the time of filing their nomination has to give their email IDs or accounts of their social networking sites, if any, for monitoring by the poll/expenditure officials.

According to the EC, the content of the advertisements issued by the parties/candidates in such internet sites should be pre-certified by appropriate authorities and the order would be applicable to the social media and collaborative projects (i.e. Wikipedia), blogs and micro blogs (Twitter), content communities (YouTube), social networking sites (Facebook), and virtual game-worlds (Apps).

I disagree with this observation of Mr. Russel that
âIf a politician has million followers but they are fake, it does not make any difference because the fake likes would not translate into million votes. Any politician can not run his campaign through fake likes because fake followers do not result in positive campaigning on the ground,â I disagree with this observation of Mr. Russel who is clearly trying to UNDERPLAY this PERNICIOUS activity on the social media. Even if the FAKE FOLLOWERS do not automatically TURN in to VOTES they CLEARLY do SET at many times, the AGENDA of the MAINSTREAM MEDIA's COVERAGE of any PARTICULAR ISSUE that does INCREASE the VISIBILITY of certain politicians LIKE MODI on a Continuous and almost DAILY & UNENDING basis as indicated by Mr. Aniruddha Bahal who has alleged that some of the IT firms featured in the footage of the sting operation have claimed to be working for the BJPâs prime-ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. This needs a THOROUGH investigatio

from:
Shahabuddin Nadeem

Posted on: Dec 2, 2013 at 10:09 IST

But is this limited to Social media? In my view fake and false propaganda is pioneered by conventional media houses and the congress has been the biggest beneficiary to that since independence.

It would be welcome if "The veil of anonymity that digital technologies provide the abusers of social media has to be pierced". But before that the farcical veil called "neutrality and self-censorship" of conventional media should be destroyed"

BTW why is conventional media so opposed to social media??? Any thoughts?? Because social media has exposed the conventional media...

Only the rules applicable to conventional media should be applicable to social media...Please mind that conventional media and congress party......long live freedom of expressionâ¦:)

from:
Praveen Nair

Posted on: Nov 30, 2013 at 12:44 IST

This trend is not just started, it is there for very long time and every time you log in and when they see your name is of any Muslim they started hurling abuses with all the bad words in the dictionary. This is mostly done against minority community and even news paper articles, blogs, opinions and all that is pointing to particular party, there you can see scores of people using slur, calling names abusing religious scriptures and branding us terrorists. This vicious campaign is there in almost all newspaper comments except Hindu Newspaper (e-paper) because it has been edited before posted on public domain. All those who comment have fake names except few, there should be proper monitoring or regulation at least to post with their real names. The newspapers at least should only post the comments on their web site who gave the real name right e-mail address or else this abuses and the misuse of social media will continue for ever. The Government should come out with regulation.

Any one who uses social media can understand this is done by paid-social-media agents. Just take a simple example - when you see a cartoon that trashes another political opponent, think who has done that. Is it a person like you and me, who have a regular job as a staff, manager, lawyer ? No. We simply don't have time to develop, research about these guys. Some one has done this work in return for money. Who would have paid other than the beneficiary? We are only 'like' and 'comment' to help the parasites.
The news item lists only BJP. I notice that almost all major parties do this work. Strangely, I see even AAP indulge in this marketing. I am not against such paid-social-media people. If they are being paid, let them not do it under fake names, use fake following.